


Five Times That Watson Did Not Wake Up In Canon

by Taz



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Bathtubs, Case Fic, First Time, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-30
Updated: 2010-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:06:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taz/pseuds/Taz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>In the course of this story, the astute reader may recognize certain scenes and lines. These elements are so particular and iconic as to be inseparable from their source. Their authorship is instantly recognizable and never in doubt. Nor can they be improved upon.  They are used here with infinite respect for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and with love for his immortal creation, Sherlock Holmes.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Five Times That Watson Did Not Wake Up In Canon

**Author's Note:**

> In the course of this story, the astute reader may recognize certain scenes and lines. These elements are so particular and iconic as to be inseparable from their source. Their authorship is instantly recognizable and never in doubt. Nor can they be improved upon. They are used here with infinite respect for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and with love for his immortal creation, Sherlock Holmes.

_Fit the First: A Private Hotel in the _ _Strand_ __

He woke to the racket of clopping hooves, the banging of cans and dustmen shouting in the back alley. He rolled away, but the sun had already stuck a tendril of light under his eyelids. It bloomed into a fierce pain and ignited an urgency in his stomach that propelled him to his feet and over to the sink in the corner where, after painfully vomiting up a thin sour fluid, he collapsed on the floor.

The mingey bit of carpet that the room afforded didn’t extend far and the floorboards were cold. He was in his underwear. Shoes? Socks? Turning until he was sitting with his back against the wall, he discovered one of his shoes under the wardrobe and the other under the bed by the ceramic pot. Oddly, his trousers and jacket were neatly folded over the back of the chair. He didn’t remember coming back to this room last night, much less undressing. How then…? It didn’t matter; Murray was long dead of Typhus and his mouth tasted foul.

He got on his knees to on the cold tap and leaned his forehead against the porcelain, while the water ran, trying to reconstruct the previous night. That’s right, he had won some money—five pounds—Passing Fair in the fourth—and gone to the Criterion to celebrate. Had he met someone? —Yes. In a moment of clarity, he remembered the lovely rumble of the man’s voice—the ready smile—_that accent_. The man hadn’t seemed interested—well, not at first, but then he had bought Watson a drink—a couple of drinks, in fact—they had talked about the army—their experiences—Afghanistan. There had been a sense of safe harbor about the man. Had he acted the fool over some big black Scot? How big a fool?

The water was finally cold. He scooped some up in his hand and rinsed out his mouth. When he was sure he wasn’t going to throw up again, he swallowed a little of it, feeling it run to his stomach. Then he pulled himself to his feet.

Carefully, using the sink and then the nightstand for support, he made it back to the bed. His watch was on the nightstand with a pile of coins beside it. At least he hadn’t been robbed. Or lost it, or… no, he had not made too much of a fool of himself. Damn. Hungover and unspent. And damn the self-pitying tear that was running down his nose, because it was going to be another pointless, lonely day.

There were voices and footsteps in the hall and the muted clink of crockery. His stomach rebelled at the thought of eating, but the meal was paid for. Bed and breakfast. Waste not, want not. Respectable. Economical. Someone in the hall called for the Boots. He remembered someone tapping him on the shoulder last night_—“Watson! What have you been doing with yourself? You’re thin as a lath and brown as a nut!”_—Oh, God! Young Stamford! He was supposed to be meeting him for lunch and cursed the moment of drunken generosity in which he’d made the offer. He and Stamford had never been particular cronies, but a familiar face when you’re a stranger in a strange city—the Holborn—the Holborn would be cheap.

He gave the small pile of coins a poke. If he husbanded last night’s winnings and never gambled again...? Fine chance that would be but, if he didn’t exercise some discipline and modify his style of living, he was going to have to leave London.

 

 

_Fit the Second: The Proper Study of Mankind_

Despite the cozy warmth of the featherbed, the aroma of kippers, bacon and strong tobacco prompted him to open his eyes. That combination of interesting smells told him that his new associate hadn’t yet gone out for the day.

As he and Stamford had turned down the hall to the chemistry lab, Stamford had said that Holmes was out of the ordinary and warned him that thay might not get on. He had been struck by the smell of coal-gas and the little flickering blue lights of the Bunsen lamps when they opened the door. The room hadn’t changed at all since his day. There had been one student, sitting at a bench, who had jumped up as they entered and come running toward them with a test tube in his hand, crying, “I’ve found it!”

And Stamford had said, “Watson, allow me to introduce Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

“How are you?” Holmes had said, gripping his hand with a surprising amount of strength. Although, as Holmes had studied him, that grip had relaxed, and he said, “You’ve been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”

“How did you know?”

“Oh, never mind that. Come and look at this. I’ve found a reagent which is precipitated by haemoglobin, and by nothing else.” Archimedes in his bath couldn’t have been a happier man.

What had stuck Watson had been the man’s eyes, glittering with pleasure as he’d demonstrated his experiment. The irises had been so bright and large and, in the gas light, appeared as dark as the pupils.

It was clear that Holmes could have talked about the importance of his research all night, but Stamford had brought him to the point of their visit—those rooms that Holmes had said he was looking for someone to share. They had confessed the least of their personal shortcomings—a bull pup—the violin—and arranged to meet at 221B Baker Street the very next day.

The rooms had been so perfectly suitable that Watson had moved in that same night. Homes had brought his bits around the next day. The landlady, Mrs. Hudson, seemed to be a tolerant sort, fortunately, as forgiving of Gladstone’s sins as of Holmes leaving a smoldering pipe on her mahogany sideboard.

They had been living together for two weeks, now, and Watson found himself still as bemused by the man as at the moment they had met. Gratefully bemused, because wondering about Holmes gave him a distraction from boredom and from the pain of his wound. Unfortunately, Holmes hadn’t yet given him much to work with, being gone on whatever business he occupied himself with, long before Watson could bring himself to rise and, frequently, returning after Watson had gone to bed. Maybe, this morning…

He flung himself out of bed and regretted it immediately when his leg gave a violent twinge, forcing him to move slowly, thereafter, as he washed and dressed.

He limped into the sitting room to find Holmes, lounging on the sofa, drawing the bow across the violin in his lap. He looked seedy and unshaven, as though he’d been up all night. There were bags under his eyes.

“Good morning, Holmes!” Watson said.

Gladstone rolled over at the sound of his voice, panting hopefully. Holmes just gave him a look and, without speaking, pointed the bow over his shoulder. The red damask curtains at the bay window had been partially drawn to reveal a street filled with a yellow fog that was so heavy it was impossible to see the houses on the other side. “No,” Holmes said, morosely. “It is not a good morning.” Then he planted the bow across the stings of his instrument, producing a sharp trill.

Not sure what to make of this, Watson looked around and saw the remains of Holmes’ breakfast on the table beside a domed plate cover. It occurred to him that Holmes must have heard him moving around in the bedroom and rung for Mrs. Hudson to send up another breakfast.

Touched by evidence of Holmes’ thoughtfulness, Watson pulled up a chair and sat down.

There was no tea, yet, but the door of the dumb waiter was closed. She would be sending that up shortly.

He tucked a napkin into the collar of his shirt and lifted the dome cover.

There was a severed human hand underneath.

 

 

_Fit the Third: _ _3AM_ __

Watson jerked out of his sleep with the conviction that somewhere, someone was torturing a cat—a long drawn out screech of pain, rose to a crescendo and was suddenly cut off. It was immediately replaced by a bitter mewling. He sat up, heart pounding, feeling for the slippers under the bed with his feet.

“Holmes!” he yelled. The wretched animal squealed louder. “Holmes!”

Pulling his robe on, he ran into the sitting room, shouting, “Stop that infernal racket!”

At first, Holmes ignored him, dragging the bow across the strings of his violin, producing an even more hair-raising note, which then devolved into a series of pleasant little arpeggio. Finally, he stopped and said, “Something wrong, Doctor?”

From his dress, this evening, it would have been easy to mistake Holmes for a stevedore. He was wearing heavy boots and a greasy smock. His face was pale, and bruised. He smelled as though he had been engaged in some particularly strenuous physical activity, possibly down by the docks. He must have been out for most of the night, working on one on his peculiar ‘cases.’

Having grown used to the various alterations Holmes could effect to his person, Watson refrained from comment, only saying, “It is three in the morning is what’s wrong! My nerves can’t take that infernal row.”

“I like that!” Holmes said. “What about my nerves?”

“What about them?”

“I don’t feel they can stand the strain of knowing that at any moment we might be evicted from these extremely comfortable rooms.”

“Why should we be evicted? Mrs. Hudson merely asked you, and very reasonably I thought, if you would stop trying to blow us up with your bloody experiments. She—Mrs. Hudson—did not say ‘bloody.’”

“I should hope not. Anyway, my experiments are irrelevant. We are discussing your gambling habit.”

“My gambling…?”

“Habit. I wouldn’t mind so much, except that you appear to be so very bad at it.” Holmes then thrust his bow into the trash basket next to the center table. When he removed it, there was a scrap of oak tag stuck to the end. This he held out to Watson.

“Holmes! You have no right prying into my affairs.”

“I do, when you lose the rent money and are reduced to having to pawn your watch. You were extremely fortunate last night in winning twenty pounds.”

Feeling hot, Watson grabbed the stub of the pawn ticket and thrust it into his pocket. “I redeemed that.”

“I would hope so. That gold watch is the only thing your uncle, the one who was kind enough to pay for your education, left to you.”

“This is unfair of you, Holmes! You have no—how do you know how much I won?”

“As we have discussed in the past, the proper study of mankind is man. I contend that you will find no better school for that than a boxing ring. A bare-knuckle fight displays man at his most basic and instinctive level, both in the ring, and as a spectator. Gets the blood up. I was happy to see you were able to resist that redhead.” Holmes gave him a poke in the chest with the bow. “Five minutes with her and…oh, I don’t know, you might be bringing it home in a specimen bottle.”

“Thank you, Holmes. I am a doctor.”

“I’m glad you remember, because—” Holmes set the violin down carefully on the table and pressed a hand to his side. “Please, go and fetch your bag.”

“What's the matter?”

“I had to be sure you won your last bet, didn’t I? Bastard broke two of my ribs in the process.”

 

 

_Fit the Fourth: Pay For Teachin’_

The crack of Ayub Khan’s Jezail muskets was growing fainter as the army fled up the ravine.

_Open your eyes!_

Hard by, a voice was crying over and over again, a horrible raw, rasping sound, and Watson wanted to scream, _Shut up! They’ll find us. Shut up!_ The man was probably bleeding to death, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Shade—maybe, the baggage wagon—his tongue was a parched lump in his mouth. He was lying in the dirt on the wrong side and something was terribly wrong with his leg but if he could drag himself around the box. No. There was no shade. It was just one of the limbers. The sun was burning through his eyelids and that voice started crying again. _I’ll kill you myself!_

_I think not, old cock. Open your eyes._

Watson reached for his service revolver but there was nothing at the end of the lanyard but his empty canteen. The cap was gone! Water! He needed water!

_Open your eyes, Watson!_

He groped for the cap in the dirt. Where was it? If he could find the cap—his eyes were glued shut—the Afghani women came down from the hills at night and—it would be better to blow your own brains out.

Someone took a grip on his shoulders and started shaking him.

_Open your damned eyes!_

_Murray_

“Murray?”

“No.”

_Then whom?_

Watson opened his eyes.

It was dark. He was lying in a bed. The sheets and his nightshirt were damp with sweat. Had he suffered another bout of fever?

No. There was the clink of crystal, the sound of liquid being poured and the sharp smell of whiskey. At least it wasn’t the hospital at Manipur. The doctors there had almost killed him.

An arm helped him sit up and a glass was pressed into his hand.

“Drink this.”

Baker Street.

Holmes.

The whiskey burned.

“More,” he said, thrusting the glass away.

When he had drunk the second whiskey, and Holmes had taken the glass from him, he pushed the covers aside and started to get out of bed.

“Hold on. What do you think you’re at?”

“Nightshirt.” The one he had on was sticking to his skin.

“I’ll get it.”

He heard the hiss of the gas as the light came on.

“Second drawer.”

While Holmes rummaged, Watson pulled the nightshirt he had on over his head. It smelled rankly and the bedclothes were a mess.

The bedroom door was open and, despite the dim light out in the sitting room, he could see a newspaper had been thrown down beside the sofa.

Holmes came back with his other nightshirt. “Sorry I disturbed…dreaming I was back at Maiwand,” he said.

“You were screaming for water.” Homes took the sweaty garment from his unresisting hand and tossed it on the floor.

“It was a hundred and five in the shade. Let me have that.” He reached for the clean one.

“No. You’re freezing.”

Holmes had also brought one of Mrs. Hudson’s good Turkish hand towels from the washstand. He tossed that over Watson’s shoulders and began to pat him dry.

Watson caught his breath, but submitted to the application. It did, after all, feel good. Very good. To be warm…the whiskey was doing its part.

Holmes must have had been working late and not gone to bed yet. He had taken off his waistcoat and his shirt was open. His braces were hanging down. Watson had discovered when Holmes had borrowed a shirt from him that everything the man wore was infused with the smell of tobacco. He widened his nostrils and inhaled. That rich strong scent set up a yearning in his breast.

Carefully not thinking about what he was doing, he reached out and began undoing the few buttons that still fastened on Holmes’ shirt. The hands on his shoulders went still and there was a catch to Holmes’ breathing but he made no effort to stop him.

When Watson arrived at the first button of the waistband he went on opening buttons, releasing richer and more intimate scents. More buttons inside. The yearning became a raging fire. Now Holmes was helping him, pushing his trousers off. Boots thumped, one after the other. Underwear to the floor. And they were rolling under the covers, belly to belly. Holmes’ shirt got bunched between them and their hands tangled, shifting it. Watson rolled Holmes over on his back, almost off the bed. He saw the starved look on the man’s face and wondered why he had ever been afraid to start. Now that they had started, which of them wasn’t going to last? It didn’t matter. He was coming. A small down payment on a bill of pent up feelings.

 

 

_Fit the Fifth: What’s Done In The Dark_

Between the page tapping and Mrs. Hudson calling, sleep was impossible.****

“Doctor Watson! Doctor! Wake up! There’s a message for you.”

“Put it on the table.”

“It’s come from Mr. Holmes.”

“Leave it on the hall table!”

“It’s urgent!”

Watson had learned not to expect consideration from Sherlock, but this was—unusual.

“All right!” he called. “Give me a moment.”

He pulled the pillow off of his head and sat up, letting his legs dangle over the side of the bed. He scrubbed his hands through his hair. By God, it was still dark! The clock on the fireplace mantel said that it was five o’clock in the morning, though. He had slept the night through and was still exhausted.

Thinking of setting up to practice in a small way, the previous afternoon he had attended a lecture-demonstration with Stamford—a new and possibly more accurate sphygmomanometer. He doubted that a mercury pressure cuff combined with an instrument that was nothing more than plate connected to earpieces by means of rubber tubes was going to replace Marey’s direct sphygmograph. But Stamford was keen on the thing, and Watson had felt compelled to hear him out on the subject. Although, they had finished the evening early at a café in The Strand, he had returned to Baker Street, aware that he had overextended himself—again.

He had thought that, perhaps, he and Holmes might talk. But for several days Holmes had been deeply involved on a case and, as Watson had entered the sitting room, he had merely looked up from his position on the floor as if wondered who this stranger in the room might be, but wasn’t curious enough to ask. After wishing him a good night and receiving a grunt in response, Watson gone to bed, him to whatever problem he was cogitating on.

“Doctor!” Mrs. Hudson called.

“I’m coming!” He hurried to splash some water on his face and ran downstairs in his shirtsleeves.

Mrs. Hudson was waiting at the bottom, along with Jemmy Page and a heavy-set, worried looking man of sober appearance. As Watson arrived, this individual stepped forward, saying, “Dr. Watson?”

“Yes.”

“Sir, my name is Jeduthan Southridge. You will pardon me, but Mr. Sherlock Holmes has been conducting an investigation on my behalf. Yesterday morning, he informed me that he had reached a conclusion that wanted but the evidence. It was his stated intention to obtain that evidence last night but he admitted that there might be a risk, the nature of which he declined to elaborate upon. But, he most particularly charged me that, if he did not return to my room at The Grand Hotel by seven o’clock, I was to bring this note to you at the first opportunity.”

With that, Jeduthan Southridge handed Watson an envelope sealed with a wafer.

When he broke the wafer, there was a note inside, in Holmes’ handwriting that read: _47 Narrow Lane__ (16th ) – come rescue me._

“This was your first opportunity?”

“I had an engagement last night,” Southridge looked distinctly uncomfortable, “with a lady.”

“I’m sure,” Watson said, tartly. “Where is 47 Narrow Lane?”

“Limehouse,” Southridge admitted, looking even more uncomfortable.

“Then he’s been murdered!” Mrs. Hudson cried.

“We will trust not, Mrs. Hudson,” Watson said. _I’m going to take care of that myself._ “Please go make a pot of tea and, perhaps, if you would be so kind, some toast. I need to finish dressing. Jemmy, go and fetch a cab. Southridge, you will accompany me to Limehouse.”

Southridge opened his mouth to argue, took one look at Watson’s face and refrained.

Half and hour later, the two men were in a cab rattling east along the Thames.

The sun was barely up and a chill mist lay like a veil on the water. Although, he had refreshed himself with Mrs. Hudson’s tea and toast, Watson was bitterly regretting the fine grilled kidneys he had declined.

“Now, Southridge,” he said. “If you would be so kind, please explain the nature of the investigation Holmes was conducting for you. And, do not leave anything out—not the smallest item. It may be crucial.” He didn’t know how, but he could hear Holmes’ voice in his head, saying, _Details! I must have details._

“Doctor, I will, but I’m afraid that you’ll think I’m nothing but a fantasist.”

“Southridge, believe me, nothing you could say would make me think less of you at this instant.”

“Thank you. I appreciate your understanding. As you may have noticed from my accent, I am an American. I teach English History at small college in upper New York State and, as to how that pertains to the work Holmes was engaged in on my behalf—you may or may not be aware that one Sir Humphrey Gilbert was resident in the Limehouse district in the late sixteenth century—?”

“I was not aware.”

“You will, of course, have heard of the Society of the New Art?”

“No.”

“Yes. Well.” Southridge let a sigh. “Sir Humphrey was, in addition to being an advocate of opening the Northwest Passage, a brother of that great alchemist Adrian Gilbert—who, you will recall, was a close associate of John Dee.”

“I see.”

“When Frobisher returned from Baffin Island, he brought Gilbert a mysterious black rock.”

“A mysterious black rock?”

“Yes. The Gilberts, together with Lord Burghley and the Earl of Leicester, set up a laboratory with the intention of turning that rock into gold.”

“And this was in Limehouse?”

“Exactly. It is my understanding that it was district of more genteel residences than its present reputation might indicate.”

Watson felt a headache coming on.

“And this has to do what with Holmes?” he said.

“It is my firm conviction—I’m writing a book on the subject, you understand—that they succeeded. But, given the irrational climate of the times, felt it safer not publish the fact.”

It was everything Watson could do not to give in a powerful urge to kick Southridge out of the cab. Fortunately, at this point, the cab in which they were riding turned a corner.

“And Holmes—?” he said.

“May have found the proof for me.”

“What is the nature of that proof?”

“He didn’t say. Perhaps, a journal or a manuscript.”

They had been passing a series of warehouses. Now the bricks over which they had been traveling gave way to increasingly irregular cobbles stones. Suddenly, the cab gave a lurch as one of the wheels dropped. The driver halted his animal.

“This is it, gentlemen,” he said. “Not going any further.”

Watson got out. “Narrow Lane?” he said.

With his whip, the driver pointed through the gate. “Down there.”

They were stopped beside an old stone wall. But there was a chained iron gate though which Watson could see a warren of buildings, mostly warehouses of earlier centuries. Inside, placards announced their condemnation by the City of London. The chains on the gates looked loose enough for a man to slip through.

“Let’s go,” Watson said.

Southridge looked horrified. “We mustn’t trespass. Send for the police.”

He made to sit back in the cab. Watson reached up and yanked him out.

“If Holmes went in,” he said, “so, will we.”

Waving the driver off, Watson made sure Southridge preceded him through the gate. It took some exertion, as Southridge possessed what could only be described as a generous frame, and Watson was privately relieved that their entry was observed by no one other than a scuttling rat. He had shoved a life-preserver into his coat pocket before leaving Baker Street, but hoped not to have to employ it, or the revolver in his other pocket.

Dimly aware that Limehouse represented one of the oldest working districts around London, he was far more aware, of its present lurid reputation, despite General Booth’s efforts, as a sink of opium dens and a haven for criminals.

As the two probed deeper, the great age of the area became evident. There were blocks of ancient tenements supporting each other like staggering drunkards. Indeed, Narrow Lane, when they found it, was dark from their overhanging upper stories and at the end of it was a court, fronted on one side by a single old mansion.

This house, wider than its companions, was some generations older and, although placarded, looked longer abandoned. The boarded up windows were secured by rusting iron bars and a double arch of stone steps to a door in the first floor was crumbling away.

“Number 47, I presume,” Watson said. “Let’s see if anyone is home.”

He took a firm grip on his walking stick and climbed the stairs.

It was hardly surprising when no one answered his knocking. No matter how hard he banged the ring in the middle of the door, the thick oak boards seemed to absorb the blows. Finally, in frustration, he took hold of the door handle and shoved. To his surprise, he felt it give.

The hinges wanted oiling but, when he put his shoulder to it, the door opened enough for Watson to get his head through. By the dim light that came from chinks in the boarded windows, he could see he was peering into a fine entry hall in its day. It was paneled but now bare of all fittings and furniture.

Still lingering at the bottom of the steps, Southridge called up, “What do you see?”

“Nothing.”

Watson forced the door open wider and went in. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that footprints had recently disturbed the thick layer of dust on the floorboards. He was sure Holmes could have told him the chosen occupations of their makers, but Watson could only be sure that there had been at least two men—one in boots, and one in rubber soled shoes. Both had wandered down a passage leading from the entry hall and, from the prints, both of them had returned. It seemed the boot wearer had ascended a stair case rising in the corner. But rubber soles had crossed the room diagonally to the opposite wall. By the pattern of regularly spaced prints, he had paced out the length of the wall at least twice. And there was an odd cluster of prints in the middle.

Watson went there and squatted down to study the prints. It came to him that there was a faint smell of corruption from somewhere—a dead rat in the wall, perhaps.

“What are you doing?” Southridge stood in the doorway.

“I’m not sure,” Watson said, trying to read some meaning into what seemed to have been random steps. Why here in the middle of an empty wall?

“I don’t feel comfortable trespassing.” Southridge said.

Standing up and stepping back from the paneling, Watson started to say, “Maybe, we should get the police, after all.”

But, as he moved, a ray of sunlight stuck the wall, revealing one foot print that was half under the panel, as though someone had walked through there. A hidden door!  He pushed on it, but it felt solid. He began to rap with his walking stick, listening for the sound of hollowness behind the wood.

“Doctor!”

In frustration, he kicked the wall. “Someone went in—!”

As he spoke, the panel slid open. On the other side of it was a staircase, a mirror to the one on the opposite side of the hall, winding up into darkness. The dust on the stair treads had been disturbed by one pair of shoes.

“God in heaven,” Southridge said.

The man looked sickly and, with the thought, Watson said, “You knew!”

“I swear, I didn’t.”

The air that blew down the hidden stair carried the smell of a death pronounced days ago.

Appalled, Watson said, “Who was it?”

“Russell. His name was Russell. The manager of my hotel provided me with the name of his agency. I paid him half up front and, when he didn’t return, I thought he had taken my money. At that point, I hired Mr. Holmes.”

“Have you sent anyone else here? Did you tell Holmes?”

“No one. Please, Doctor, let’s go and fetch the police. Now.”

“No,” Watson said. There was sense in Southridge’s words, but he could neither bear the thought that Holmes might be trapped above them, nor bring himself to trust a man who had sent another to death, and not mentioned the fact. “We’re going up.”

He motioned for the visibly shaking Southridge to precede him up the staircase.

The stairs turned and, as Southridge put his weight on the fifth step, the panel at the bottom snapped shut behind them. Suddenly enclosed in the dark, Southridge gave a muffled squeak. Watson reached into his pocket and took out a pack of safety matches. He lit one and held it up. “Keep moving,” he said.

He struck four matches, burned his fingers, and the stairs turned six times before they arrived at the rough side of another wall panel. Fortunately, the mechanism of lever and wooden gears that opened this one was evident and moved easily.

Once through, Watson stuck one of his dwindling supply of matches and they discovered themselves in the middle of a long, very narrow room that might have been a library—or a laboratory.

Although shelves filled the bays to the ceiling, they were empty and it looked as if the place had been emptied at speed or ransacked long ago. The floor was littered with a mess of torn folios, rolls of parchment and bits of bric-a-brac.

The smell of putrefaction nearby was strong, but there was no body to be seen.

As they stared about them, the door panel snapped shut and Watson’s match went out.

In the dark, it was far too easy to imagine the buzzing of flies. With trembling hands, he stuck another match—there were only two left in the box.

“Hold this.” He handed the match to Southridge, bent and retrieved one of the rolls of parchment he had seen on the floor. It had once been tied but the ribbon had vanished into dust long ago. It cracked as he rolled it and held it to the match in Southridges’s hand.

“Doctor, no!” Southridge was moved to protest. “That may be immensely valuable.”

“I don’t care if it is the original music for _Greensleeves _in Henry VIII’s own hand!” Watson thrust the makeshift torch at Southridge. “Start looking for another way out of here. There has to be one.”

He rolled up another parchment to make a torch for himself and explored the place by the light of its smoking, flickering light.

“Come, look here,” Southridge called from the far end of the room where an oak table in the style of the period of Queen Elizabeth stood along the wall.

There was a mess of old broken glass on the floor around it. On it, though, was a soft felt workman’s hat that he recognized, and a bundle of candles.

He lit one for Southridge and one for himself, relieved that the problem of light was solved, but now more worried than ever.

The candlelight was brighter and steady but they were still swaths of darkness around them.

Watson bumped into a chair with a split leather seat. Glass crunching under his feet sent him back around the table, where the floor was clear but the boards had a tendency to creak. This time he noticed that someone who hadn’t cared about getting their clothing ruined had sat on the table—and then climbed on top of it, stood up and walked about. It was his old friend with the rubber soles—it looked as if the man had gone up his toes at one point—reaching for something high? Could there be a moving panel up there?

Watson climbed on the table. He tapped but there was nothing to find. He noticed that rubber soles had jumped off the table at the spot where the floor had been swept of glass. Risky, Watson thought, and climbed down.

He went up and down the walls, rapping, particularly on the wall where the smell of death was strongest.

He attempted to read the prints on the floor, as he had in the entry hall, but there were too many of them and, he realized, now their own boot prints were criss-crossing them. There was no door and, after a while, very tap and rap seemed to produce a hollow echo in his imagination.

Oh, god, his leg was aching!

In desperation, he thumped the panel they had come through. This time, it didn’t budge.

For his part, Southridge had undertaken investigating the shelves and paneling on the other end of the room but persisted in becoming distracted by things he discovered in the trash—a worm eaten breviary, an inkstand, a— “Doctor, look at this!” Now he was wiping a section of wooden globe with his coat tail. “This could well be proof that tells us that the Gilberts were here.”

“Does it tell us why they built a damned secret laboratory?”

“I should have thought it obvious.” Southridge looked at him owlishly. “They were recusant Catholics.”

“What? Priest’s holes and secret stairs?”

“I should expect so.”

Watson went back to the table and set the candle down. He stepped back and studied the table and floor and the pattern of foot prints again. Then he went and stood by paneling on the wall where the floorboards were clear of debris, exactly where rubber soles had landed when he jumped. The floor creaked beneath his feet again.

He took off his hat, set it beside the felt cap and climbed back up on the table. He jumped off and, when he landed, the panel in front of him opened, revealing another dark passageway.

Southridge was calling, “Doctor, wait!”

“Come on!” he called, expecting Southridge to follow him, and stepped through the opening.

He hadn’t taken two steps, when the flooring dipped at an angle beneath his feet and the panel snapped shut behind him. He was standing on some kind of round plate! And it was turning! Not falling, thank God, but his stomach told him he was descending slowly.

There was the scraping of some mechanism struggling to overcome friction and he could imagine it stopping, all too easily.

He wasn’t sure how long that strange drop lasted, but he was already off balance when it ended. His knee buckled and he was thrown awkwardly against a cold rough surface. He struck his shoulder and scraped the side of his head. Blood ran down his cheek. He could feel the stone wall and was overwhelmed with the conviction that he was trapped. This black shaft was going to his tomb!

In a panic, he began failing around him with hand and with his walking stick, and shouting, “Help me! Help me!” Then a blinding light filled the shaft and he heard Sherlock Holmes’ voice saying, “Easy there old cock. Just give me your hand.”

He reached and his hand was taken. That familiar powerful grip pulled him up and out.

There was sunlight and air!

The air was fetid. He realized he was hanging over a sill above an old air well that was choked with the accumulation of—who knew how many years—of water and weeds and god-knew-what—it was a soup of fertile decaying matter. And there was a weight on his back. Holmes was yammering at him—“Watson, if you would be so kind as to let go of your walking stick—Give! Thank you! If I insert it in this groove, the stone can’t turn on us.”

The weight came off his back.

Watson was able to roll over and sit up carefully on the frame of some kind of vent to the air well.

There was just enough room for the two of them to balance as Holmes wedged himself in beside him.

The stone that had sealed the vent was sticking out from the wall.

Holmes leaned against it, reached into his pocket, pulled out a grubby handkerchief and offered it. “My god, you’re gorgeous!” he said.

“There was no need to strike me!”

“Good to see you, too.”

“I wish I could say the same.”

Watson appreciated that it was Holmes’ weight on his back that had kept him from going face first into the muck and that, obviously, Holmes hadn’t been so lucky. Even though he was smiling through a coat of black dirt and looked far too strained and pale. The smock and breeches he was wearing were filthy, and soaked to boot.

“You smell as if you’ve been crawling through a bog.”

“And so I have. But, hey ho, my old china, when we get back to Baker Street, it’s straight for a bath, a bed and a nice fizzy powder.

“In the meantime,” Holmes looked hopeful, “did you happen to bring your flask?”

“I did, as it happens.”

From his breast pocket, Watson removed the flat tin and offered it to Holmes. Holmes took it with indecent haste, uncorked it, tipped it back and gulped.

“Pretty raw stuff, I’m afraid.”

Watson rescued the flask while Holmes was gasping it and caught a nip himself. It was extremely cheap gin.

“What are we doing here?” he said, when he had got his own breath back.

“You are rescuing me, for which, I should thank you, I suppose.”

“I am, or was, investigating the disappearance of one John Russell of Pollaky’s Private Inquiry Office on behalf of his wife and, as a professional courtesy, on behalf of Pollaky’s.”

“That may turn out to be the late John Russell. I suspect that rumors of his death will be found not to have been exaggerated.”

Holmes nodded. “I am really very glad that you did not attempt his route out of that laboratory. The Gilberts knew what they were risking and they were fiendishly ingenious in designing their defenses.”

“Remind you of anyone?’

“Perish the thought,” Holmes said.

Watson looked around them. There was a door that had once allowed servants access to the air well, but that had been bricked up long ago. Also, the windows that had opened to it.

“Who could have built this?” he said.

“The Gilberts were notorious in their day for designing toys and fetes and ingenious devices. Southridge is the author of several articles in which he discusses how some of their more famous effects might have been accomplished.”

“Hidden stairs and hatches?”

“The existence of which, I suspect he failed to warn his first agent; he certainly failed to warn me when I made myself available to him in the matter. I had the advantage of a day’s reading at the British Museum but I believe the law will have something to say to Professor Southridge when we get out of here.”

“Any thoughts as to how we’re to pull that off? I am not going back in that shaft.”

“Well, then…given the Gilberts’ propensity for cunning escapes, I expect there to be at least one other secret way out of here…probably under all this muck. The two of us digging together....”

“Holmes,” Watson said. “I give second to no man in my respect for honest toil, but I am as likely to plant a crop of oats and take up farming in this yuck, as you are to dig in it—and I don’t see a shovel. How are we going to get out of here?”

Holmes shrugged. “I don’t know what I would have done, if you hadn’t arrived so fortuitously.

“Fortuitous, my ass!”

“Did you think I intended to spend the night here?” Holmes made a gesture of helplessness with his hands. “I am without a clue,” he said.

“Sherlock,” Watson said. “We have known each other for only a few months, but I have come to recognize when you are prevaricating and I am not getting back in that hole!”

Holmes sniffed at his smock and made a moue. “I can’t help the smell,” he said.

“That is not the issue!”

“What else could it be? Surely, it couldn’t be that you’re—”

“All right! Give over.”

Watson still had the flask in his hand. Glaring at Holmes, he pulled the stopper and took another drink. Then he held out and, when Holmes reached for, he jabbed the stopper back in and shoved it out of sight next to his heart.

“After you,” he said.

“Grazie,” Holmes said, with exact politeness, nearly bumping Watson off the sill as he reversed and slithered through the opening.

Watson looked up. The sun was just visible overhead. Unbelievably, it wasn’t even noon.

Holmes’ voice sounded hollow behind him. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going have to pull the stick out, so come down slowly. I’ll catch you and hold you up.”

Watson sighed, saluted the sun and let himself down into the shaft.

As promised, Holmes caught him around the knees, bracing his feet. Getting the walking stick out of the trough it was jammed it in cost him some skin but, when it came, the stone began to swing around and Holmes let go.

Watson slipped into Holmes’ arms as the dark closed around them.

From the tickle in his stomach, they were rising.

“How does it work?” he wondered.

“Like a penny in an egg machine.” Holmes’ breath smelled of gin. “We’re the penny.”

The mechanism sounded more strained than before, with the two of them on it.

It seemed they rose more slowly than he had descended.

Given the angle of the lifting surface, and that there was so little room on it, Watson was aware of Holmes’ body and how cold he was; the man had been in that air well the entire night. Watson slipped his arms around Holmes’ waist and held him close.

“Hard and self-lubricating,” Homes said.

“What?”

“Lignum vitae—Iron Wood—what they must have turned the gears and working parts out of—hardest in the world. Still working after all these years”

“Oh.” Holmes’ head was resting on his shoulder now and the earthy reek wasn’t all that pleasant. Watson kissed him anyway.

It was just a feather brush in the dark—easy to deny, given the situation—and bitter tasting. It was hardly provocation for the guttural moan and sudden thrusting against his hip.

A doctor doesn’t need to ask _what?_ He pulled Holmes closer in the dark and held him through the tumult and the rush, and, when the storm was over, reluctantly unwound them. “It’s a good thing you’re all over wet,” he said. “What next?” One of the last bumps had been the lift coming to a stop.

“Stamp,” Holmes sighed. “Hard.”

Watson stamped and the plate they were standing on dropped back to its original position. As it slipped into place, the wall opened to the ruined library.

“Oh, good! You’re back!” Southridge said.

“Southridge,” Holmes said.

“Mr. Holmes, I am glad to see you’re well! Come and see what I’ve found.”

He had been busy in their absence, discovering yet more pieces of the broken globe and some fragments of alchemical glassware. There were other treasures, as well as the inkwell and the breviary. The object corroded under a heavy green patina had to have once been an astrolabe. And there was a wooden mortar and some lumps of black matter.

Southridge had gathered all these things on the rectory table and lit the remaining candles around them. It had the effect of an altar.

“Southridge,” Watson said, “what if Holmes and I had never returned and all of those candles had burned out? What would you have done?”

“The possibility never in the world occurred to me,” Southridge said.

“Of course not,” Holmes said. “Thanks to Dr. Watson, you know the safe way out.”

“You mistake me, Holmes! It’s that I was so excited at finding the evidence.”

“Evidence of what?” Watson said.

“Of real alchemical practices. That the Gilberts succeeded—that black rock Frobisher brought them—they turned it into gold! Look here!” Southridge picked up the wooden mortar and held it out. He had wiped it clean and, at the bottom, was a subtle but unmistakable yellow. “This is proof.”

“You must be mad,” Watson said.

“No,” Holmes said. Picking up two of the lumps of black matter from the table, he smacked them smartly together. Both crumbled away, leaving a gleaming object the size of a bean in Holmes’ right hand. “It is proof, but only that that the Gilberts were clever.”

“What do you mean?” Watson said.

“The Gilberts funded their extravagant lives with bogus experiments. Cover tiny amounts of gold with a coating of glue and soft iron filings. The right chemicals dissolve the glue and Frobisher’s magnetic rock draws off the iron filings. I’m sure it was a very effective demonstration on those occasion that they needed to persuade a wealthy angel that it would only take a few hundred pounds more to perfect the process.

“Unfortunately, they became so notorious they were eventually accused of witchcraft and an attempt was made to arrest them. When the soldiers came to arrest the Gilberts, they had vanished into thin air. One of the arresting officers vanished as well.”

Holmes put the bean in his pocket and took one of the candles from the table. He went to the set of bookshelves nearest to the panel through which Watson and Southridge had first entered the library. He gave the base a good kick. There was a popping and the whole unit of began to turn, revealing the hiding place behind it, and releasing the smell of a body in an advanced state of decay.

Watson looked inside. As he expected, there was the body of a man, dead for about a week. He looked as though he had been sitting up when he died and then tumbled over, still clutching the gold locket in his hand.

“He died alone, in the dark,” Watson said, full of pity.

“Not alone.” Holmes said, raising his candle to illuminate the entire shallow space.

Another had died there, long ago, and the grinning skull still bore a helmet of ancient design.

“That can only have made Russell’s death more hellish. Is this worth your discovery Mr. Southridge?”

“You can’t blame me,” Southridge protested.

“I do.” Holmes said. “But a court will decide your fate in the matter. I will tell you that you are fortunate that I think well enough of the law to leave you to it. If you would be so kind, Watson, give the stair panel another of your good kicks. We could all use some fresh air about now and I believe something nutritious at Simpson’s would not be out of place.

* * *

It was night by the time they got back to Baker Street.

Doctors and priests are safe for any confidence and Watson had quickly learned just how much Mrs. Hudson distrusted new-fangled notions. It was her conviction that, even if dear Dr. Lambert, God rest his soul, had called it a heart attack, that it was an unhealthy devotion to weekly bathing that had resulted to the late Mr. Hudson’s untimely death.

While alive, his obsession had caused the installation of a Shanks Patent Syphonic Closet under the stairs and the creation of a ‘bath room’ at the back of the second floor. This particular room was finished up to the dado with fire glazed tiles and graced by a free-standing ‘General Gordon’ parallel bath (also by Shanks). One of Maugham’s combination copper geyser and towel warmers squatted on a platform at the end of it. When lit, this monster would rumble and hiss and erupt with great bursts of steam and glorious gouts of hot water.

Watson lay back, up to his chin, and squeezed the sponge over his head.

To Mrs. Hudson’s intense satisfaction, Holmes had chosen to indulge in a good, decent old-fashioned hip bath in his bedroom. Both she and the housemaid had been hustling cans of hot water up and down the stairs for half an hour and, now, as they descended, he could hear the maid sighing, “Aw, the puir man.”

That, Watson reflected, will secure him their landlady’s good graces for some time to come. In fact, Holmes could probably build that automatic cigarette smoking machine he had been on about, fill their rooms with smoke, cover the rugs with ashes and she would still forgive him.

The ‘puir’ man bellowed for one more can of water.

Watson sighed and attempted to possess his soul in patience.

His prick was having none of it. The tip broke the surface. He blew upon it and it slunk down.

It had been a long afternoon, but he was still comfortably full; Simpson’s had turned out to be a working men’s café near Clank Warf, not far on foot from the Gilbert mansion. In the essential categories of meat pie and beer, it turned out to serve a reliable article. And, as it was heavily patronized by steamfitters and dustmen, Holmes had not appeared out place.

It was Watson and Southridge who had garnered pointed comments about ‘slumming toffs’ until Holmes had lured an urchin to their table and commissioned him for a penny.

Upon being commissioned, the urchin had produced a constable and the constable, on hearing them out, had produced more of his kind and, eventually, a police wagon and one flustered detective inspector named Lestrade. This Lestrade said his tea had been interrupted by the most extraordinarily grotesque and unbelievable rumor he had ever heard in his career and, if somebody was playing silly buggers, he would see them regret it. After telling them not to move from the spot, Lestrade went off with one of his constables and when he returned Southridge was duly arrested.

To make up for his interrupted tea, though, Lestrade threatened both Holmes and Watson with trespassing charges should they fail to appear at Scotland Yard in the morning and provide comprehensive statements.

From the cheering as they left, it appeared that the patrons of Simpson’s had voted them worthwhile entertainment.

* * *

He could hear Holmes call, ‘Thank you, Mrs. Hudson. That will be all, for now.”

In the days following that first desperate fumbling between them, Holmes hadn’t said a word or even referred to that night obliquely.

After admitting to a deep disappointment, Watson had decided to let it go. Misunderstandings can happen between the closest of men…had happened.

Although, burying such feelings was akin to suicide, Holmes was simply the most remarkable man Watson had ever met and he wasn’t going to risk his friendship.****

That afternoon, though, when they had finally escaped the scene of the tragedy, there were moments when he had been overwhelmed with a profoundly intense physical sensation, as if Holmes still pressed against him, as he had in the shaft—and the bumping and release—and he had to keep stopping himself from smiling. He had been glad they were sitting down.

He suspected that it had been a suppressed twitch of his lip that had provoked Lestrade’s final threat. It wasn’t that he had been making light of the situation; he had barely been aware of Lestrade’s presence—at one point, Holmes had given him an elbow in the ribs to get his attention.

His prick broke the surface again. He could take care of it himself, as he had so many times before, alone—or he could call Holmes to account for his behavior.

The thought provoked an urgent throbbing. He said, “I thought you had better sense than that.”

The imprudent member gave a bob, as if to acknowledge a distressing lapse of judgment.

“He is completely selfish, arrogant, peremptory, obsessive and slovenly in his person.”

_And I want him...._

“He gives orders like no one I have ever—‘come and rescue me’—the man can’t even say please, much less—”

Watson realized that he must have thrown the sponge across the room because it was on the floor over there and there was a wet spot on the wall.

“You are going to regret this,” he told his prick.

_But this can’t go on._

The water was getting cold.

He pulled the chain and stood up as it gurgled down the tap.

He left his soiled clothing and old dove-gray nightshirt where they were and put on his dressing gown, tying the cord around his waist, just in case he met Mrs. Hudson or one of the servants in the hall.

There was no one about; the house was quiet.

The door between the sitting room and Holmes’ bedroom was slightly ajar.

The tea tray was sitting in the dumb-waiter. He moved it to the center table and poured himself a cup and wandered around the room sipping. There were three little gold nuggets sitting on the sideboard. In the air there was the faint scent of something mildly herbal and spicy—Pear’s soap?—as if Holmes were making an effort. And there was music_…he flies through the air with the greatest of ease, that daring young man on the flying trapeze…_

Watson recognized that tinkling tune. It was the kind you couldn’t get out of your head. He took his cup over by the window and saw the hurdy-gurdy man coming down the street.

_And my love he purloined away._

His prick throbbed for relief.

This must be how Caesar felt, standing on the north bank, Watson thought.

He set his cup down, went over to the open bedroom door and pushed it wider. Despite all the grief Holmes had given him about his gambling, he knew when it was time to roll the dice.

Holmes was sitting in a hip bath in the middle of the floor, scrubbing his back with a long handled brush. Steam rose about him and the fire in the grate cast orange highlights his skin.

“Come to scrub my back?”

“No,” Watson said, giving the cord of his robe a tug. He put his hands behind his back and leaned against the door frame, thrusting his hips forward. “For something else.”

Holmes’ eyes grew unbelievably large. He looked like a deer dazzled by a jacklight, as Watson’s prick beckoned to him_._

It would have been funny—the man sitting in what amounted to a bucket, with his knees spread and the bent arm in the air with the scrub brush dangling—if Holmes hadn’t looked so terrified—if there hadn’t been tears standing in his eyes!

“Put that damned brush down, will you?” Watson said, cursing the sudden prickling behind his own eyelids. “Before I turn tail and run.”

“No!” The brush clattered to the floor and a great deal of water sloshed out on to the rug as Holmes stood up. “I-me—I mean—let me turn your tail!”

“Holmes!” Watson grated. “Get over here! Now!”

To his surprise, Holmes obeyed him.

He came stumbling out of the hip bath and fell at Watson’s feet, wrapping his arms around his legs.

The feel of warm wet skin was too much and Holmes’ parted lips were a rosy invitation.

Watson caught the back of his head and thrust home. Almost, too late. On the cusp, needing to thrust, he didn’t dare move and could only brace himself against the door frame and hold on, trying to keep still until he could gain some control.

He had no control, whatsoever, over Holmes’ tongue that was licking and writhing and tickling and poking at the all his tender places until he was bucking and plunging, and barely retaining enough of his self-possession not to cry out as he spent everything in his purse.

His knees were trembling, too weak to support him. With his hand still tangled in Holmes’ hair, he slipped down the door frame.

Holmes, already between his legs, came up and met him mouth to mouth. The first kiss was sweet, but not as sweet as the hot spatter of Holmes’ climax on his feet.

Afterward, they lay on the rug, a pair of bankrupts holding each other, until it was getting cold and they had to mind the spreading wet stain on the rug that was going to put Holmes’ credit with Mrs. Hudson to the test in the morning.

Finally, after a prodigious yawn, Holmes said, “Stay with me for a while.”

“Yes,” Watson said. It was precisely his desire.

They climbed into Holmes’ bed and nestled together, finding pleasing ways to accommodate each other’s limbs.

Holmes was drowsing.

Surprised that he wasn’t exhausted, as well, Watson was careful to keep the kisses he was pressing on Holmes’ lips and eyes gentle, but he couldn’t help saying, “Oh, God, you’re beautiful.”

“Can’t help it,” Holmes whispered.

“Being beautiful?”

Holmes snorted.

“Being a selfish sod—I see too much, hear too much—if my mind is not busy—you may cane me.”

“What? Now?”

“No. Wednesday,” Holmes said. “It helps my mind to focus.”

Whatever it did for Holmes’ mind, the thought brought Watson’s prick to such delightful attention, that if Holmes hadn’t been so nearly asleep…

“Wednesday,” Holmes whispered. “I promise.”

“Why Wednesday?” Watson said.

“It’s the maid’s half-day. And I happen to know that Mrs. Hudson is planning to visit her sister. You will cane me until my bottom is blistered and red. I assure you that you will have my full attention, because I am going to have you kneeling on the rug in front of the fire.

“Are you reading my mind?”

“No, my dear, the chain of reason is perfectly simple. One could say elementary even. Here we lie in the still-warm ashes of our mutual passion. Given everything that has happened today, a less ardent man than yourself would be perfectly satisfied. But, after I said you may cane me, I felt your prick swell against my thigh and saw your gaze travel from the empty bath to the doorway. From your sigh, I knew you were replaying the experience in memory, wishing it had lasted longer; your hand began to stroke my arm (move it lower, please). From this I deduced that you were contemplating another round, but were concerned that I might be too tired. Then, your glance fell on the small cork-stoppered bottle that’s sitting on my nightstand and you remembered me blurting out my desire to ‘turn your tail.’ Your gaze moved from the nightstand to the hearth rug, which happens to be the soft fleecy white hide of a mountain goat and you began to imagine yourself kneeling on it; me butting into you from behind. You could almost feel my balls slapping against your ass…so, Wednesday.”

“Holmes, you’re incredible.”

“Yes,” Holmes said, sitting up.

Watson watched him pick the small bottle from the nightstand and pull the cork. Curiously, he dipped the tip of his index finger inside. It came out coated with some thick translucent grease, which he rubbed thoughtfully against his thumb. “Watson," he said, now dipping his whole finger in deeper. "I confess, I find that picture quite stimulating, as well. You know, you could oblige us both by turning on your stomach...it seems I’m not nearly as fagged as I feared."

Watson rolled over.

The sheets were pushed down around his thighs.

Holmes’ finger, slick with grease, slid inside him. Back and forth it flicked, overcoming all muscular resistance and leaving him open. He lifted his ass up, searching for more, and the weight of Holmes' body came down on top of him, spreading his legs apart as Holmes covered him, pressing to his heart.

Anchored safe at last, he raised his head to shout his pleasure—and had his face shoved into the feather pillow.

“If you have the urge to scream, my dear,” Holmes said. “I earnestly entreat you, bite that!”

_Holmes!_

_Finis_

01/31/10


End file.
